5 SMOOCHES!
SYNOPSIS:
Sofia Kendrick has always cherished her tiara. As the youngest daughter of a wealthy New York family, she’s lived the life of an American princess. But after two scandalous divorces and a breakup smear her name across the society rags, the shine from her crown has dulled. People call her superficial, even gaudy.
She’s nothing more than tinsel.
Desperate for escape and starving for peace, Sofia heads to Montana for a holiday weekend with her brother. But she doesn’t get the relaxing vacation she planned. Instead, she’s put to work in a bar alongside Dakota Magee—a man who does not want her help. A man who is set on teaching her a few lessons about real life and hard work. But Sofia has a couple of life lessons of her own to teach. Like how to fall in love.
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REVIEW:
Devney Perry has shot up the list of my favorite authors with her deeply emotional writing, her interesting and unique characters and her consuming love stories. She crafts such richly developed stories, vividly describing all the little details that really bring the setting, the story and the characters to life for the reader. She slowly peels the layers back on her characters in a way that truly gives the reader the chance to get to know them. Threading in a suspenseful edge to her storytelling, she brings it all together with intriguing, engrossing two-pronged plots where the suspense arc is just as compelling as the romantic arc. She pulls me into her worlds right away, and I hang on every word. Intense emotion paired with a realistic plot and relatable characters make hers the kinds of stories that not only capture my attention immediately but also hold it the whole way through.
Readers of the Lark Cove series will recall meeting the spoiled princess of the Kendrick family, Sophia, in Tattered. Vapid and shallow, stuck-up and judgmental, she was the kind of character you couldn’t help but dislike. She may have been wrapped up in pretty packaging, but it did little to disguise the person she was beneath. I’ll be honest, I went into this book wondering how–if –Perry could redeem this character for me. Not only did she, and she did it quickly and in a way that, unbelievably, made Sophia Kendrick one of my favorite heroines. In fact, it didn’t take long before I was not only rooting for her, but I was also relating to her.
Sofia wasn’t merely knocked down a peg or two, she had a sorely needed rude awakening that opened her eyes to the woman others saw in her. That brutal experience shook her to her core, and she fled New York for the safety and anonymity of her brother’s home in Lark Cove. This trip didn’t turn out to be the wound-licking escape that she was anticipating, however. In a dose of tough love courtesy of her sister-in-law, Sophia is served up a heaping helping of reality with a generous side of humility. But it was Dakota’s gentle yet direct guidance, not her brother’s, that led Sophia through this tumultuous time. It was his encouragement that set her on the path to finding herself and discovering her passion, which gave her the tools and the courage to reinvent herself. Sophia’s truly genuine soul-searching process was so authentic, and her transformation to an unpretentious woman was incredibly natural.
Dakota McGee was a wise, proud and sexy alpha hero who had his own soul-searching journey to travel. What set Dakota apart from everyone else in Sophia’s life was the fact that he was the only one who saw beyond her carefully constructed façade to the lost and floundering woman beneath. Theirs was much more than just a physical attraction, although that definitely sizzled between them. They connected almost immediately, and I got lost in that right along with them. From two vastly different worlds, they both struggled with what they were feeling, yet their longing for one another and a future together was a palpable thing. The problem was they both had a hard time seeing beyond their differences, and while they were at opposite ends of the spectrum in a lot of ways, they were on the same page in others. This was a couple who cared very deeply for each other, but those differences and their real-life situations kept getting in their way, making it heartbreakingly difficult for both Sophia and Dakota to see beyond them to what they could be.
Devney Perry’s Tinsel was a complex, layered and moving love story that was teeming with emotion and punctuated with difficult choices and sacrifices. While there was definitely some heartache to be endured before getting to the happily ever after, Dakota and Sophia’s story was a sexy, complicated, heart-tugging journey about overcoming obstacles to find redemption and true love. The entire Lark Cove series has been fantastic, but this story, the series finale, surprised me at every turn. Five smooches from me for Tinsel by Devney Perry!
~Danielle Palumbo
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